Remaking heaven in small-scale democracy: A randomised experiment to encourage contested elections and greater representativeness in English local councils Matt Ryan, Gerry Stoker, Peter John, Alice Moseley, Oliver James, Liz Richardson, and Matia Vannoni

What does local heaven look like? Increased (equal) political participation We have seen plenty of experiments around enhancing main forms political participation… – Voting – Standing for office? – Communicating with a representative – Joining a movement/campaign

Parish council Rural Britain – green and pleasant it can be cloudy like heaven Small communities (lowest tier of government for roughly 30% of the population of England) 9,500 parish councils and 95,000 councillors. 70,000 inhabitants to less than 200 residents. 80% of parish councils govern areas of less than 2,500 inhabitants Councillors are disproportionately old (only 8% under forty and just over 1% under thirty) and disproportionately white males (29% women and 4% black and minority ethnicities). *last census 2006 Rarely hold contested elections = legitimacy problem.

What do we know about recruitment? In the majority of cases a stimulus (communication) is needed to recruit a person to stand for office (Mcleod et al 1999). Recruiters tend to look first to relatively closed networks, and value people with the same characteristics that they themselves possess (Crowder-Meyer 2011, Brady et al. 1995; 1999). Logical to want confidence that the recruit will do a good job…close personal connection or often a family connection (Van Lieffringe, 2012) May also recruit from within any number of networks of ‘purpose’ where they can recognise that members have a shared identity (Lim 2008)…weak and seemingly innocuous relationships e.g. a friend of the family (Della Porta and Diani 2005)

…continued… Time-scarce…use crude heuristics – as proxy assume that education, income and labour-market position are related to political interest (Stromblad 2008). For recruit personal incentives key – Will I win? Will I make a difference? Can I gain access/reward/status? – Costs - Time to campaign/stand and do the job (Norris and Lovenduski 1994), being in the public eye (Lawless 2012)

Facilitating intervention? Literature suggests interventions need to be centred on clear understandings of the fears and ambitions of potential recruits and practically enable capacity and confidence- building through training or reassurance mechanisms.

May 7 Group: Hampshire, Northants, Suffolk, Surrey and Leics/Rutland

Sample 977 parishes 818 clerks 5 counties of Southern England 51% (498) parishes received treatment letter & briefing paper 49% (479) parishes received control letter & no briefing paper

Research design in a nutshell Pilot in to find out best practice > treatment for 2015 Randomization of 818 clerks to take account of shared parishes Sept 2014: Control got a general letter about recruitment Sept 2014: Treatment got a letter & briefing paper from researchers with inclusion of research findings + invited to training sessions with Stoker and John Nov 2014: training takes place (two crossovers) Measurement of taking the treatment by a survey and crosschecking websites Outcomes measures by contested elections and seats, and survey measures investigating the extent of activity to recruit candidates

Findings …Almost nothing Something happening with encouragement to use social media. Why? – some ancillary research information helps us understand…

Role is time consuming (65%) Lack of knowledge of parish councillor role (44%) Perception that parish councils have limited power to make a difference (44%) 341 responses from 977 parishes (35% response rate)

Forcible Enhanced powers Quotas Other (downstream) affirmative action Compensation Targeted mobilisation Training Nudging Information Facilitative Enhancing representation